


Upon Finding One of Great Value

by blueteak



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Disguise, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 21:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13039437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: Sister Monica Joan goes on a secret mission.





	Upon Finding One of Great Value

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Musyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musyc/gifts).



“Your habit will protect you, surely?” asked Trixie as she adjusted her hair in the mirror. 

“You misunderstand,” Sister Monica Joan said. “I don’t wish this disguise for my protection, but for stealth. And secrecy.”

That, at least, got Trixie’s full attention. “For stealth?” 

Sister Monica Joan nodded firmly. “And secrecy.”

Trixie opened her mouth as if to inquire, then snapped it shut with an audible click, having clearly decided it was none of her business why Sister Monica Joan wished to go out in disguise. 

“For stealth, then…” Trixie murmured, running her eyes up and down Sister Monica Joan’s habit. “I mean, you’re already head-to-toe in black...” Her eyes lit up. “A catsuit?”

“I was thinking more Queen Mary than Emma Peel,” Sister Monica Joan replied, sounding slightly regretful. 

“Queen Mary? I thought the idea was to be sort of…unseen.”

“Where I’m going, looking like Queen Mary is the best way to accomplish that,” Sister Monica Joan informed her.

Again, Trixie looked poised to inquire, but kept her own counsel. Her excitement, however, she chose not to contain. 

“I know where to find just the thing! I also kept a few issues of Vogue from around the time of Queen Mary's funeral…I wanted to be Princess Margaret at the time, you see, but we can get a sense of Queen Mary’s jewels and hair from the portraits in that issue even if it is about the funeral….”

After arranging to meet Trixie at a pre-arranged time the next week after Prime (and only if Trixie played “There’s a Moon Out Tonight” to show the coast was clear), Sister Monica Joan went down to the kitchen to contemplate the rest of her plan (as well as some Eccles cakes Sister Julienne had likely purchased to keep her from breaking into the Christmas cake before it had had time to age properly. Or, for that matter, to keep her from breaking into Sister Julienne’s own birthday cake once it was made. As though Sister Monica Joan would stoop so low as to eat someone else’s birthday cake, either Sister Julienne’s or Jesus’s!)

The next week at the appointed hour, Sister Monica Joan, fresh from the Benedictus (and the Happy Birthday to Sister Julienne, after they’d left chapel), thrilled to hear “There’s a Moon Out Tonight” emanating from Trixie’s room. 

There was only so much time to achieve the look she desired, what with Trixie needing to prepare Sister Monica Joan for her “stealth” and then prepare herself for her rounds, but there was no doubt in Sister Monica Joan’s mind that Trixie could work magic, and not just during her midwifery. 

After her wimple came off, Sister Monica Joan forced herself not to look in the mirror. Excited as she was for this outing, she was hesitant to see the steps that came between taking off the appearance of this self and becoming another—or becoming what might have been. What her mother had wanted her to become. 

The thought of her mother’s wishes for her almost curdled her joy at seeing the transformation Trixie had wrought. However, just as had occurred in life, Sister Monica Joan’s mother didn’t get the last word. 

What looked back at her from the mirror was a confident, luminous woman, smartly dressed and unwilling to take any prisoners. Sister Monica Joan wasn’t convinced she could ever get her hair to lie flat under the wimple again.

When at last she could be assured that everyone was at rounds or otherwise occupied, Sister Monica Joan crept out of Nonnatus House, and only began striding confidently, as was appropriate while thus attired, when she was a block away. 

She attracted plenty of stares and quite a few comments, some admiring, some quite rude, and then stepped into a chauffeured car that was, thank goodness, still waiting as planned. Good. Fred had been able to find a uniform. It did not quite fit, but that would not compromise their cover, she didn't think. After all, people would assume all manner of things before believing that a nun and handyman were pretending to be a high-born lady and her chauffeur. 

At last, Fred parked the car and Sister Monica Joan told him she would be back shortly, after reassuring him that Sister Julienne would appreciate his taking her rather than seeing this outing as a conspiracy. At least she thought that would be the case. And in any event, even if it could be considered a conspiracy, it was a conspiracy for a good cause. 

Once she walked into the shop on New Bond Street, she found the gentleman she had long ago arranged everything with. She withdrew a drawstring bag from the handbag Trixie had loaned her and hesitated a moment, closing her hand around the parcel before surrendering it. 

“I have no wish to pressure you,” she assured the gentleman. “But time is of the essence. You can have this task completed in under two hours, as you so generously offered?”

When the assurance had been given, she settled back gratefully into her chair, watching life swirl around her, less scripted than the television she loved, less routine than her life as a midwife and sister--though no more beautiful, for all the elegance of her surroundings.

In what felt like no time, the gentleman asked for her approval of his work, which she breathlessly gave. This part of her past could now be an unmitigated source of joy, something to treasure without fearing the memory of past torment and disappointment. Tears welled up in her eyes. Dressed in this armor as she was, however, she resolved not to shed them here. 

She left shortly after that with several boxes in her handbag in lieu of the drawstring bag she’d entered with. 

She didn’t have it in her to chastise Fred when she found him leaning against the car with a bag of chips when she returned. Clearly not everyone was as adept at stealth as she. And besides, scolding him wouldn’t result in him sharing any of the chips with her.

When they arrived back in Poplar, however, she discovered that her own her disguise wasn’t as good as she thought it had been. 

Fred had once again parked a block away from Nonnatus in order to give them both plausible deniability. 

“Sister Monica Joan!” Colin Simpson, a boy she had delivered 34 years ago, called to her down the street.

Though it pained her to ignore him, she kept walking and pretended she hadn’t heard. It wouldn’t do for word of her wandering about in this getup to get around. 

“Sister!” He called again, running up to her. “It is you!”

She turned, and in her best Queen Mary voice said: “My dear boy, I fear you must be mistaken.”

Her turned skeptical eyes on her. “I’m sure it is you, Sister. I have no idea why you’re out looking like this—lovely though you are, I’m sure—but it’s important. My wife’s having her baby and no one was answering at Nonnatus, so I came ‘round to see if there was a problem with the line and bring back anyone I could. And here you are. Also, we have cake,” he got out all in a rush.

Later, Sister Monica Joan claimed it was her love of cake that must have given her disguise away in the end. But all of them knew that the instant she’d heard about the mother in need, she had been prepared to own her identity. 

The baby was born in time to share his birthday with Sister Julienne, who had arrived to assist just as Sister Monica Joan had got the breech baby's head safely born. 

The nuns then shared the cake Colin had promised with the new parents, afterwards repairing to Nonnatus for Sister Julienne’s celebration. 

And quite a celebration it was, despite the late hour. Nonnatus House had been done up with streamers and a birthday banner. After everyone else had presented their gifts, Sister Monica Joan felt in her handbag and pulled out the largest of the boxes. 

Out of her mother's pearls, she'd had a small pearl cross necklace made, jewelry Sister Julienne would feel comfortable wearing. The rest of the pearls had gone into making bracelets for the rest of the women at Nonnatus, which they would receive at Christmas.

Sister Julienne's eyes filled with tears. "I don't have any words," she said, clasping the necklace to her chest. "Not even any words about why you're out of your habit or how you came to have this made," she added. 

Sister Monica Joan smiled, and reached out to help Sister Julienne fasten the necklace around her neck. "For some occasions, words are not necessary."


End file.
